Thursday, May 24, 2007

The Shock and Awe of it All

by Julie Coulter Bellon

Can I just tell you how shocked and appalled I was at the behavior of some of my fellow bloggers? No? Okay, you got me. I wasn’t really shocked to find out that Rob is a sluffer and Jeff was a prankster. It made their blogs really interesting to read, but alas, it put me in a tough situation.

I was a good student.

I loved high school overall---I loved being a cheerleader, playing on school sports teams, being on the school newspaper, being with my friends and whatever cute boy I liked that week and I loved most of my teachers. School was fun, but I also knew that I wanted to get good grades so I could get into a great university. Which I did. I graduated from high school at seventeen years old and was planning on attending the University of Alberta, but then I got my acceptance letter to BYU, so I headed to Utah. Best decision I ever made. :)

So, my point is, I really didn’t think I could add much to the getting into trouble at school blog, but as I was mulling over my school days, I did remember two incidents in elementary school that could be construed as getting into trouble. In fourth grade, I had a teacher named Mr. Heggie and he did not like it when people talked in his class. His class rule was, if he saw you talking he would count to four and when he said FOUR he would lob his chalk brush at whoever was talking. Well, one day, we were working on a project and I had turned around to talk to my neighbor and didn’t hear Mr. Heggie counting at all until the chalk brush landed on my desk. It scared me to death and I was totally humiliated when everyone laughed. I turned around and put my head down so that no one could see how upset I was. Mr. Heggie came and collected his chalk brush, looked down at me and all he said was, "No talking."

Then, in fifth grade, I got in trouble for looking at a clock. It’s true! The class was boring that day and I couldn’t wait for the bell to ring so I had turned in my desk slightly to look at the clock. Mr. Lee caught me and was so upset he made me stand up, face the clock, and stare at it until the bell rang. In front of the whole class! Then, I had to go to the library during recess and fill out both sides of a foolscap paper with the sentence, "I will not stare at the clock." Yeah, it didn’t make much sense to me either, since my original punishment was to stare at the clock, but whatever. I did it.

Oh, and one time I got sent home with a note to my mother on my report card because I'd tried to check out more than the maximum allowed books from the library.

So there you have my sad tales of woe from school. If the theme had been greatest moments from high school or the teacher that influenced you the most or something I would have had more to work with. Sorry about that, it’s all I had!

But, come to think of it, even though I didn’t get in trouble at school, I did have two claims to fame I could tell you about. In eleventh grade I was sitting in French class, pretending to half-listen to something French while I was copying out the lyrics to Forever by Kenny Loggins (don’t ask) and I sort of felt fuzzy and a little dizzy. It’s hard to explain, but I got up from my desk and went to tell my teacher that I needed to go to the ladies room. She nodded her head and I turned to the door, but everything just went black and I fainted. Unfortunately when I fainted I banged my head on the filing cabinet next to the door and they had to call the ambulance. So there I am, strapped to the gurney, being wheeled past the cafeteria where EVERYONE was eating lunch and when they saw me, they proceeded to line up at the glass windows to watch me be carted away in the ambulance. Probably one of the most embarrassing moments of my life.

My second claim to fame was during exam week. It was right before the Senior Dance (the Canadian equivalent to Prom sort of) and we were all sitting there in silence, writing our exams. All of the sudden, some rock music comes blaring over the intercom which was funny, but it didn’t stop right away either. We heard a commotion in the hallway and teachers started running for the school’s radio room where student DJ’s play music and stuff, but the door was locked. It quickly spread throughout the school that the boy who was taking me to the Senior Dance had locked himself inside the radio room so he could play music for us while we took exams. The students thought it was funny, but as you can imagine, it didn’t go over very well with the principal. All in all, the boy was still able to take me to the dance, so it turned out okay. For me, anyway.

So many fun memories. * big sigh*

Great, now I have Forever by Kenny Loggins playing in my head. *sways and sings along* "Forever in my heart, forever we will be, and even when I’m gone, you’ll be here in me . . ." Wait, is that a French teacher’s voice that I hear? Je ne sais pas. I’m sort of feeling fuzzy and a little dizzy now. Step away from the filing cabinets and someone call the ambulance! Thank goodness I don’t have any cafeterias nearby . . .